


Paul has Hemophobia: Change my Mind.

by jcrycolr3wradc



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Blood, Coffee, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hemophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 02:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18489049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jcrycolr3wradc/pseuds/jcrycolr3wradc
Summary: Paul is afraid of blood and ends up on the floor of Beanies for five minutes. Bill is the greatest. Emma loves her tall boyfriend. The end.





	Paul has Hemophobia: Change my Mind.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I dislike the narrative that Paul was somehow being a coward when he didn’t kiss Emma after she spat blood over him. First: Lauren Lopez isn’t comfortable with doing onstage kisses, so Nick and Co wrote around it, which is a very nice, to not force an actor into a situation that they aren’t comfortable with. Second: Paul is being very smart to not kiss someone with internal bleeding. Emma could have any kind of blood-transmitted diseases. She could already be infected and passed it onto him. He could have herpes and swapping saliva could have hurt her. Finally: IT’S FUCKING BLOOD AND IT’S GROSS.
> 
> But Jcry! I hear you say, If he’s so afraid of it, then why didn’t he slump over in a catatonic state when Emma coughed it all over him, or when Sam’s brain was exposed, or when Charlotte had her intestines outside of her body?  
> First: Adrenaline is a very powerful force. When your life is at stake, as it was would be when you’re trapped on an island with singing alien zombies, your body is able to push you past things that would normally incapacitate you. Like, Emma was skewered through her femur. She shouldn’t even be conscious.  
> Second: It was blue and therefore not as triggering as red blood would be.

Emma was having a hell of a day. 

She’d gotten to Beanies on time, true, but Nora had jumped on her for not being five minutes early since fuckin’ Zoey had called out. Like this was somehow Emma’s fault.

It had been steady all morning. All the tables were full and there was always at least one person waiting at the counter. Nora left her periodically to run the cash drops, so Emma was all by herself, finally with five minutes to try and run around a clean, when someone broke one of the kitschy mugs on a display, showering the floor in the cheap glass.

Emma just barely held back the impulse to shatter the rest of them. She got to sweeping, chasing after the fragments under tables and people’s legs. Customers, usually so obtuse, seemed to sense that poking the barista would result in a ferocious tongue lashing and so scatter like birds.

_Good fucking riddance,_ she thought, almost flat on the floor as she groped under the shelves.

“Ah! Fuck!” Emma pulled her hand back, blood already running down her palm in a long stream. “Damnit, damnit, damnit,” she muttered as she rushed around the counter. Nora would be pissed if she dripped blood all over the floor.

Emma was in the middle of washing the cut in the back sink when the bell chimed again.

“Shit,” she hissed. “I’ll be right with you!” She called out, customer voice on.

“Take your time.”

Emma stuck her head around the door and grinned. Paul was standing in the middle of the store, smiling his sweet, slightly awkward, smile.

“Hey, babe!” God, it was crazy how just seeing him in his plain three-piece suit could make her day better but she smiled her first genuine smile of the day as she came out of the back, absently patting away blood with a paper towel. The bleeding was slowing but hadn't stopped altogether yet.

Paul’s eyes slid from her face to her injured hand. His eyes went very wide.

“Some idiot dropped it on the floor,” she said and rolled her eyes. “Lemme just get a bandaid. Coffee’s fresh-ish, you can help yourself,” Emma rattled off, using his tie to leverage herself up and kiss his cheek. She’d just let go and turned away when there was a crash behind her.

Emma wheeled around and had just enough time to see Paul crumped on the floor, with a chair knocked over before the bell chimed again. She looked up and saw that Bill had just entered.

For once in her life, Emma Perkins found herself totally at a loss for words. She just gaped at Bill, who took one look at Emma, one look at Paul and grimaced.

“He passed out?”

Emma gestured blankly, brain still loading an appropriate reaction to this.

“Shit, okay. You should probably stop the bleeding on that and then grab a glass of water,” he said, very calmly.

When she came back, bandaged and with a tall (clean) glass of ice water. Paul was still flat on his back, but the chair had been righted.

“What the hell happened to him?” She finally managed to get out. “He was fine one minutes an then the next-”

“He was on the floor?” Bill sighed. “Yeah. Paul has acute hemophobia.”   

“He’s afraid of blood?” Emma was surprised by how surprised she was. Paul was probably the most even keel person she knew and she kinda assumed that he wouldn’t be afraid of much.

Bill nodded. He grabbed one of the artsy footstools and propped Paul’s legs up on it. He didn’t seem too flustered and Emma wondered how often this happened.

“Yeah. He thinks it’s because he saw his grandmother beheading chickens when he was young, but who really knows?” Bill sheepishly grinned. “Once when he babysitting Alice, she fell of a tree and broke her nose, blood all down her front. He didn’t faint then, only because he was so hysterical. My ex is a doctor and she thought he was going to have to go to the hospital for oxygen, he was that panicked.”

Emma kneeled down next to Paul’s head. He was still out of it and now she could see that a light sheen of sweat had broken over his forehead.

“I didn’t know,” she said, heart seized up in guilt. “We’ve watched horror movies, he was fine with it.” _But he likes black and white horror movies. He’s the only person on earth who could me to sit through Nosferatu for god’s sake._

“Usually only real blood that he has to see makes him faint,” Bill shrugged again. Paul started to stir, groaning. He opened his eyes.

“Hey buddy. How are you feeling?” Bill asked. Paul acted as if he was going to sit up. Emma grabbed his shoulder, holding him down. He sighed and covered his eyes with a hand, face losing it’s pastyness as he flushed.  

“I passed out didn’t I? Sorry Em, I didn’t-”

“The hell are you apologizing for?” She asked sharply. “Unless it’s for scaring ten years off my life, I don’t wanna hear it. It’s fine Paul.”

He lifted his hand off his eyes and she held it between her own. It was distressingly chilled.

“Come on, I think you can get off the floor now,” Bill said. He and Emma helped Paul to his feet. Emma pushed him down into one of the couches and handed him the water. He stared at her hand.

“Are you alright? It was a lot of blood,” he asked.

“It’s fine,” and held it out so he could see it was completely clean and bandaged. She didn’t want to point out she wasn’t the one who had been horizontal for five minutes. “Let me get you guys your drinks, _on the house_ ,” Emma insisted over both men’s protests. “Paul I know how much is that tip jar, don’t even think about it,” she called over the noise of the espresso machine.

“I surrender,” he said, holding up his hands. There was more color in his face and he wasn’t shaky or trembling.

“We’re gonna have to head back. Davidson is having a all staff meeting about the quarter’s profits,” Bill said apologetically. “Otherwise I’d cover for him and let you guys flirt awkwardly here.

“Suddenly I feel totally fine and ready to work,” Paul said quickly standing up while Emma laughed.

“Come here and then I’ll let you get to your super important business meeting.” She pulled Paul in by his tie to kiss him, rising up on her tiptoes, balancing with a hand on his chest. He was warm and his heart thudded steadily under her hand.

“You are okay, right?” She murmured when she leaned away, searching his face.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Sorry for...scaring you,” he said, pale eyes sincere. Emma melted and let go of him.

“Better not do it again. Alright, go run off and be a cog in the machine,” she waved them off.

“Love you,” Paul called out as Bill dragged him away, grinning widely.

“You too,” she said before the door swung closed behind them.

-Fin

 

A/N. Non-ending in a non-ending. Whatever.  


End file.
